Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Green Sunfish, Hybrid bgills, Bill Cody

Bill, I read in a post dated August 14 in response to Rowly negatives about Hybrid Bgills. Number 5 had to do with green sunfish being bad. I stocked 200 of the hybrids along with 400 bgills on Jan. 31 of this year. They definitely are more aggressive. I also stocked 150 channel cats and 150 LMB in my 1 ac pond. What are the problems with the green sunfish and do you think I will have a problem. I also had a post about length limits that I will address to you later. Thanks for any input.
Bill Morris

Dear Mr. Green Sunfish:

Pond professionals much prefer stocking bluegill and redears over green sunfish. Several reasons:
* Adult green sunfish have a large, hinged jaw, which allows them to compete in the food chain with your predators. They also can eat your juvenile bass.
* Greenies are prolific spawners, which, without sufficient control pressure from adult bass, they can ruin the population balance.

In recent years, we've had several articles on the green sunfish, quoting various fisheries professionals. To a man, they were negative about greenies.

One last thing you might want to know . . . Green sunfish and their hybrids are quite hardy. They tolerate confinement and transport better than other species.

This does not make them a better fit for your pond, but it makes the green sunfish and their hybrids profitable for fish dealers and haulers.

Fill in the blanks yourself.

Mark McDonald
Editor, Pond Boss

B.Morris - Mark McD has pretty much covered all the negatives about green sunfish. I raised them in a cage one time with bgill the same size and some a little smaller. Larger greens ate all the smaller bgill. Greens will get big up to 8" maybe 9", but usu. they get so over abundant that they over eat the food source and do not grow much larger than 5"-6". Many times they only get 3-4" long and become prolific bait stealers. LMB love them and may even eat them in preference to bgill, BUT why grow them in place of or with bgill? Bgill will get larger than greens and bgill will not eat nearly as many small fish as the greens. Many of those small fish will be your young of the year bass; maybe even some of last years bass 2-4". 2-4" bass are not very wide & easy for a larger greeny to swallow.
Some dumb fishermen I know even call greens smallmouth bass; geesh !

With the hybrid bgill in your pond and numerous years of hybrid reproduction the population always seems to revert back to the green sunfish. That's why the reputable hyb. sunfish sellers will tell you to clean out your pond every several years to get rid of this "trash reproduction".

If you always keep a strong, abundant bass population the greens will not become overabundant but will persist at low numbers. As BobL. says greens and hybrids will NOT grow large bass when hybrid are the only forage. Basically bgill are naturally designed to grow large bass by creating lots of proper sized forage. That's why bgill and LMB go good together. But you the PondMeister have to use some brains and manage the pond to maintain proper balance and harvest properly to achieve the desired results. If you leave it up to mother nature she will do it, but probably not to your liking.

Greens as M McD says are hardy. They tolerate real low oxygen levels. Often they are the only ones to survive a fish kill. They are also good jumpers; easily jumping out of a 5 gal bucket half full of water. This ability aids them when migrating up streams to spawn.

Mark and Bill, thanks for your input. Bill seeing the time of another post I wondered if you were addressing mine when I sent the email. I have not trouble catching the bgills and hybrids right now so I am going to harvest as many hybrids as possible edible size or not. I know I have had at least 2 spawns of either the bgills or hybrids so far. Do the fry disperse over a large area? Would trapping be an option to try to eliminate these fish?

I had a previous post about slot limits. My stocking rates were listed above in this post so I won't list them again here. I have not been able to get a bass to bite (barbless hook) in a while but the last ones that were caught were about 8" (2 months ago, 2-3" when stocked). They were not overly skinny nor fat. There is alot of talk about pulling everything under 14" out which is not an option for me yet. I assume they are in the deep water due to heat and/or are well fed. Hope to begin catching again in cooler weather to get an unscientific survey of present size. I also wonder there is a percentage of catfish that should be harvested every year.

I appreciate and thank you for any additional input.

B. Morris

To show you what I think of the bluegill/greensunfis hybrids I caught one the other day that escaped one of my floating cages a couple of years ago, or it was a second generation offspring. I threw it on the bank for the crows to eat.

Ah, Cecil in Indiana . . . feeding fish to crows. . . Put yourself in for membership to the Audubon Society.

Mark McDonald
Editor

B.Morris - Don't fish your bass too hard until they get older. You will teach them to be hook smart and have a hard time catching them when you need or want to..

Most of the small bgill types in your pond are probably bgills.. Hybrids are 60-90% males thus their spawn is limited in number due to not many females. Hopefully your hybrids have ther higher male %. Once the fry get 1/2-3/4" long they are dispersed from the tight school and hang in loose groups. Trapping is a good option once they get 2-3" long so one can recognize bgill vs hybrid which can be tricky.

Do not start thinning bass until the first hatch has spawned. Which is usu. 3-4yrs (maybe 5 yrs in the north)after the initial bass stocking. By then the population should be represented by various sizes. Forage by then may be thin and bass are in danger of over eating the resource and growth often stalls. Which size class has slowed growth will depend on what sizes and types of forage are in the pond.

Catfish harvest. In my opinion when catfish are not fed each one takes the place of one bass. A wise old Ohio fish hatchery owner told me a five pound catfish eats more fish than a five pound bass. Another fish hatchery guy that worked for a state hatchery says that big cats are the "top dogs" in the pond. We proved that this summer only the catfish were only 18-20" long not five pounds. The big cats must be growing more at that weight needing more food. Catfish are night time predators similar to owls. Each catfish you take out will probably be replaced by a bass. Depends on which one you prefer this will determine on how many of each you harvest. BC

Bill, could I start trapping the hybrids stocked this year? This "greenie" prospect doesn't set well with me. I didn't put crappie in this pond because of the size of the pond and the management plan I was following said they would compete with the bass. Little did I know when I put the hybrids in I could end up with the same scenario with the future "greenies" coming out of the hybrids.

We will harvest the cats regularly. Hopefully keep just enough to eat occasionally. The hybrids we had for dinner last Saturday were delicious so I'm not real worried about having plenty of cat to eat.

One more question Bill. See above

B. Morris - Another good thing about hyb bgill is they trap well. Can catch lots of them with most any type trap that has opening big enough for the fish to get thru. As soon as I get more time I will post the name & website of a very good fish trap company in WI. If you really want to eliminate the hybrids & since you only have 200, some trapping and/or proper intensive fishing esp w/ live bait, you should be able to severly thin their numbers yet this summer. With some luck their spawn was limited this yr. Since they are pretty aggresive, future fishing and sorting will not leave many in your pond. I'm assuming you can readily and accurately identify pure bgill vs hybrid. Don't get overly concerned your pond is not ruined; just just keep thinning the hybrids and you pretty much will work them out of the system. Always maintain a strong bass population and they will also keep them in check esp since the offspring does not grow as fast & as big as the F1 generation.
Hyb. bgill will definately NOT eat as many fish as the crappie would have eaten. Esp true if hybrids are fed pellets. Also Crappie are really hard to get trained to eat fish food esp in any numbers. The occasional crappie will take pellets. . However the trash offspring from hybrid bgill will not get really nice sized for eating and fillets as compared to pure strain bgill which is a much better choice for a long term quality fishery. I was hopeing that someone would start a topic on the benefits of hybrid bluegill; they have some benefits in special cases. Most nieve pondowners are "sold on them" without fully knowing both sides of the story. Sellers on the fish truck only preach the benefits.
Greenies do "come out" of hybrids after numerous generations; seen it numerous times in small ponds. Those ponds were usu killed off to get rid of the trash.

Bill, thanks for all your insight. Gives me hope. Got a bit of fishing to do.

B. Morris